Mr. Leo Clancy:

The sentiment remains positive in respect of the UK. However, we are closely watching it. In particular, the current headwind relates to energy prices. We have a price cap in effect and a business in Ireland, for instance, that is heavily exposed to energy prices competing with companies that are price capped in the UK. That is certainly a very specific issue at the moment. On cost competitiveness, we are seeing those issues. However, on the demand side, we are hearing positive sentiment from our exporters.

The Deputy’s second question was around the start-up sector. As I mentioned in earlier remarks to Deputy O’Reilly, there has been a pull back in global capital and that is affecting the start-up sector. There are different schools of thought on this area. Scale-up capital will be harder to get. However, I think businesses have adjusted their expectations to not need as much capital as soon as they might have otherwise sought it. That is certainly balancing some of that. Certain start-up businesses are seeing that there are positives for them in some of the pull back that is happening in that they can make the capital that they raise go further. There are always swings and roundabouts in this.

On what we are seeing, we set an ambitious target every year, as the Deputy will know, for high-potential start-ups, as we call them, and for pre-seed funding by ourselves into businesses through what the Deputy recognised was the competitive start fund. We are seeing a strong pipeline for high-potential start-ups this year, though not as strong as we saw last year. The pipeline is as strong. I think our ability to close it out this year will be challenged by that availability of capital issue. However, notwithstanding that, we will see a good outturn in terms of high-potential start-ups.

We also just launched a new pre-seed fund, which replaces the competitive start fund. Rather than backing off the competitive start fund, we have actually doubled down on it by making the instrument more start-up-company friendly. We had a lot of feedback from the sector that it was not operating in that way and by increasing potentially the amount of funding that companies can access, we are doubling down on the pre-seed funding we are offering to companies. I might ask my colleague, Mr. Leahy, in a second to comment on SCARP specifically, in terms of how it is rolling out for us.

On the start-up side, we would be positive. There is much ambition out there. Capital constraint is the biggest issue. The ambition is there and the number of people who are starting business and want to start businesses is very strong. In the context of any downturn in technology or other sectors, we are gearing up to make sure our supports for people starting businesses or training people to be able to do so are made available to anyone who loses their jobs who might be so minded. We see that as an area that we will be ready to intervene on at the appropriate time. Mr. Leahy might comment on SCARP potential.